Co-starring in the epic series is David Birney as David Blackwell (Kate’s hubby and Jamie’s assistant) and Harry Hamlin as Tony (Kate‘s son), with supporting parts played by Cliff De Young, Liane Langland, Cherie Lunghi, and a few bits with Barry Morse and David Suchet.

The remaining three parts (each part lasts about 1hr 40min) tells how Jamie’s daughter, Kate Blackwell (Dyan Cannon), comes to be the very cunning and deceitful head of an entire empire and how she attempts to manipulate her various offspring (and her offspring’s offspring) into being just as sly and untrustworthy as she is so that the fabulous family business may continue to run with hands of steel and a heart as hard as diamonds. If you feel I just spoiled the everloving bejesus out of the story, don’t worry, kids - that’s just a brief synopsis of Part 1. With his health returned to him following a severe beating at the hands of Van der Merwe’s henchmen, MacGregor discovers that his whole face has since changed - and the once naïve lad plans his elaborate revenge, becoming one of the area’s biggest diamond miners in the process. Swindled out of everything and left for dead by a devious Dutchman Salomon Van der Merwe (played to the hammy hilt by the great Donald Pleasence), Jamie finds himself in the caring hands of native Banda (Johnny Sekka).

The story tells the tale of the rise of a powerful empire, which begins in 1890 South Africa as a young (and rather green) Scotsman by the name of Jamie MacGregor (Ian Charleson - who looks like he could have been a close relation to Hugh Jackman in this) arrives in Johannesburg to find his own personal fortune in diamonds. Based on Sidney Sheldon’s bestselling 1982 novel of the same name, Master Of The Game is a four-part mini-series from the year of Big Brother, 1984.

Sidney sheldon diamond